


Hot (dog) Date

by KindDog



Series: Hot (Dog) Date Universe [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Crack Treated Seriously, Dating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, It's not as serious as it sounds, M/M, My First Fanfic, Post-Season/Series 01, Skiing, but not really, i don't know anything about the jonas brothers sorry, museum date 2.0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27771847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KindDog/pseuds/KindDog
Summary: After Willie's soul is freed from Caleb, he and Alex end up going on many more museum-like dates.aka--I feel like the show did not make good use of the phantoms' teleportation powers, so I wrote this.
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: Hot (Dog) Date Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032753
Comments: 8
Kudos: 122





	Hot (dog) Date

**Author's Note:**

> Look, if I were to die and get teleportation powers, I would go EVERYWHERE. The whole time I was watching the show, I kept thinking about how dumb it was that they died and just decided to keep up with band practice instead of going on some world tour via teleportation. 
> 
> Also this is the first fic I've ever finished writing or posted so sorry if it's not great.

One month ago, Willie’s soul had been freed from Caleb through the power of friendship or love or. . . something. No one was really sure how they had done it. One day, when Willie had snuck away to meet with Alex and hugged him in greeting, it just happened. He glowed the same way that Alex and the others had the night of the Orpheum, and then he was free. Alex thought back to Flynn’s theory about that night and blushed. After Julie had called her and told her what happened, she theorized over the phone that Julie was able to free the souls of her bandmates through love. Julie adamantly denied this, clearly embarrassed by Flynn’s words, but at the time, Alex had thought that Flynn was onto something. He wasn’t so sure now though, finding himself agreeing more with Julie. Alex didn’t love Willie--not yet at least. They hardly knew each other. Sure, Alex cared for Willie in a way he’d never felt before, but he was also his first boyfriend. It was all very new, and he just couldn’t tell how he felt. 

After Willie was magically freed through...unknown forces, he and Alex started going on dates. It was Julie’s idea. When he told her about his trip to the museum with Willie, she immediately pushed him to take Willie somewhere too. At the time, it just wasn’t possible due to how tight of a leash Caleb had over Willie, but when his soul was freed, Alex finally scrounged up the courage to ask him out. Without any hesitation, Willie agreed, and Alex panicked, realizing he actually had to find somewhere to take him. He ended up teleporting the two of them to a ski resort his family used to visit, and they spent the day sliding down a snowy mountain and sitting on a snowbank, pretending to be Olympic announcers judging the other skiers. They spent a long time rolling around in the snow, and it was a good thing they couldn’t get frostbite.

After this successful date, Willie declared it was his turn to pick where they went. Only a few days later, he grabbed Alex’s hand and teleported them… into the middle of the grand canyon. They weren’t on the edge looking in or at the bottom looking up, they appeared high above the bottom of the canyon with nothing below them but empty air. Despite being ghosts, they couldn’t float, and while they were falling, Alex screamed harder than he had ever screamed in this entire life--or afterlife for that matter. After falling for a few seconds that felt like an eternity, the two ghosts landed softly and painlessly on the floor of the canyon. Alex then proceeded to yell at Willie, who was struggling to apologize through his laughter. Once Alex had calmed down and Willie had assured him that he hadn’t teleported so high in the air on purpose, they spent the day trying and failing to find scorpions, which Willie insisted should be everywhere, and just messing around in the dry orange dirt. At one point, the dark haired boy tried to convince Alex to skateboard off of a steeply sloped cliffside, and the hoodie-clad teen instead pretended to be a cactus, refusing to move or speak to him. Aside from its disastrous beginning, it was a good date.

In the weeks following, the two boys took each other all over, making good use of their ghostly teleportation powers. They visited all of the tourist traps, daring each other to jump off the Eiffel Tower and play fighting like gladiators in the coliseum. Reggie and Luke ended up going on adventures of their own, not wanting to be left out of all the fun, much to Julie’s chagrin, as she sat around at home by herself. She made sure to get back at her bandmates though, spending an evening ignoring them and convincing them, with the help of a panicked phone call to Flynn about how the boys were missing, that she could no longer see them. After that, Reggie and Luke ceased their travels, and Alex made sure to bring her back little souvenirs, as he had recently figured out how to teleport while holding things, which neither Luke or Reggie had been able to replicate. 

Despite the fun they were having, Willie and Alex decided that they needed to stop going to such obvious, tourist- filled hotspots and instead take each other to lesser known places. It was one such date after this decision when Alex teleported himself and Willie to somewhere special to him. 

When they poofed into existence, Willie looked around and found himself standing in a clearing in a lush forest, tall grass brushing up against his knees. Next to him was Alex, still holding his hand, the sun reflecting off of his light hair as mosquitos buzzed around them. In front of them was a derelict log cabin. It looked as if it had been abandoned a long time ago and left for nature to reclaim. The logs were eaten away, mushrooms and lichen dotting their surface, its windows were boarded up with weather-stained plywood, and part of the roof had caved in, giving it a misshapen, hunched appearance. 

He looked towards Alex, noticing the melancholy look in his eyes as he stared at the building in front of them. 

“Where are we?”

At these words, Alex finally looked at Willie and squeezed his hand reassuringly. He led them to a fallen tree at the edge of the clearing, where they sat side by side in the shade. Alex looked out towards the cabin and began to speak. 

“This was my grandfather’s old hunting cabin. I used to come here every summer. My parents hated the outdoors and my sister was too little to bring along, so it was always just me and him. The first year he brought me, I was twelve. He tried to teach me how to shoot and I was actually pretty decent at it, but when it came time to actually shoot an animal, I got so upset and chickened out, swearing to never eat meat again.” 

He smiled softly at the memory, glancing at Willie briefly before continuing, “I was so afraid he’d be mad at me. I knew he loved to hunt and he’d talked for years about how he couldn’t wait until I was old enough to join him. It was important to him, and I was convinced that he’d hate me for how cowardly I had acted. My dad was always on my back about “being a man,” whatever that means, and I thought my granddad would react the same way. But he didn’t. As I sat there on the forest floor, crying and blubbering about how I could never kill an animal, he sat down with me. He was an old man, and sitting cross-legged on the ground wasn’t exactly easy for him, but he sat down all the same. And that’s all he did. He didn’t scold me or force the gun back in my hands. He just sat there with me until I calmed down, and then we walked back to the cabin. He didn’t say anything to comfort me, not the emotional type, I guess, but he did tell me that he wasn’t going to make me do anything I didn’t want to and asked me what I wanted to do instead. The rest of the week we spent every afternoon fishing, letting anything we caught go, and every evening roasting marshmallows on a campfire. We ended up doing this every year until I died.”

The drummer paused for a moment, letting Willie digest everything he was saying before continuing once more, more serious this time “He ended up outliving me, but I don’t know by how much. For all I know, could still be alive, just very old. I don’t really want to find out though. If he’s still around, I doubt he’s the same as I remember him, and if he’s not, I don’t want to know about it. I just want to hold onto the memories I have of him here.”

Willie stared at him, waiting to see if he was finished before speaking, “He sounds like a good man,” he said, trying to gauge the other boy’s feelings, “Do you miss him?”

Alex cracked a sad smile and responded, “Yeah, I do. Whenever we were here, I used to pretend that he was my dad and that I lived with him in this cabin all year round. It was always so sad when I had to go back home to my real dad. I never understood how a man with such a good father ended up such a shit one.”

At this, Willie pulled Alex closer to him, intertwining their arms and hooking their ankles together. He spoke quietly, “You’ve never really told me about your parents.”

Alex let out a sarcastic laugh, “Yeah, they weren’t great. They were a manageable level of not-great when I was growing up, but…” he trailed off, looking down at their legs met and studying the braided bracelet the other boy had around his ankle.

“But?” said Willie, wanting him to continue but not wanting to push too hard.

Alex sighed and leaned back to sit up straight, “When I came out to them, it was just unbearable. I ended up leaving home. Luke ran away around the same time and Reggie spent a lot of time away from home as well. We all basically lived in Bobby’s garage.”

Willie untangled himself from Alex and stood up, pulling the other boy along with him. He wrapped his arms around him in a hug, burying his nose in Alex’s pink hoodie. When he spoke, his voice was muffled through the thick fabric. “I’m really sorry that happened to you.”

Alex shrugged awkwardly in the tight hug, the skater’s long hair tickling his cheek, before pulling away and looking at the ground, shoving his hands in his pockets and nudging a rock by his foot. 

“I don’t know what I thought would happen,” said Alex. “They were religious and conservative. I knew they didn’t support gay people, but I thought that when it came down to it, when it was me,” his voice cracked and he stopped to take a deep breath, looking up towards the sky as tears formed in his eyes, Willie’s hand coming up to rub comfortingly at his shoulder, “I thought they would come around for me, but I was wrong.”

Alex huffed and leaned forward, resting his head against Willie’s chest and blinking away tears before they could fall onto the other’s tie-dyed shirt. Willie's necklace dug into his forehead and Alex let the cool chain ground him. The skater reached his arms over the grieving boy, resting them against his back, where he continued to rub comforting circles into the other boy’s skin until his breathing evened out. His heart ached for the boy, but he didn’t know what to say to make it better. After several minutes of Willie wishing he knew how to help, not knowing that him just being there and listening was enough, Alex finally pulled away. He stepped back and wiped his eyes roughly, sniffling as he looked away with embarrassment. 

“I think I want to leave now. I’m sorry this wasn’t a very good date,” Alex said in an uneven, croaky voice as he began to step further away.

Willie jerked out, grabbing his hand, “Hey, don’t be like that. I’m really glad you took me here. I got to learn even more about my favorite person today,” said Willie, trying to lighten the mood.

“Oh yeah? And who’s that then?” responded Alex playfully, his voice still rough and his eyes red-rimmed but glad to change the subject to something less serious.

Willie looked him dead in the eye and plainly said, “Julie. Turns out she has a secret love for the hit, teen band the Jonas Brothers and is very excited about their reunion tour.”

Alex snorted, “You know I don’t know who that is.”

“I guess you’ll just have to ask Julie to find out,” responded Willie with a smirk.

Alex smiled at him and looked at the sky through the trees overhead, noticing that the sun was still set high in the sky. 

“We haven’t been gone long. Any chance you’ve got somewhere lined up for our next date that we can go to now?” asked Alex, trying to move on from his brief breakdown.

Willie froze, thinking of the plans he had made the night before to go to a hot dog museum in the middle of nowhere. Now was probably not a great time to be making references to his boyfriend’s death. 

He cringed and said, “Uh… I do, but I don’t think--”

“Sounds great, let’s go” interjected Alex, smiling expectantly at him, desperately wanting to leave and regretting coming there in the first place.

Willie hesitated, “Um… are you sure? Because I don’t really think it’s going to make you feel better.”

Alex clasped his hands in front of him in a pleading motion and made puppy dog eyes at Willie, who stared at him for a long moment before relenting. It was hard to ignore his boyfriend’s wishes, and besides, he didn’t seem too upset anymore. Maybe he would find it funny.

Grabbing the blonde’s hand before reason had a chance to kick in and change his mind, Willie teleported them to his poorly chosen destination. They landed with a flash in a parking lot, facing a garish red and yellow building with a massive plastic hot dog on the roof and a glowing sign reading “Big Jack’s Hot Dog Emporium.”

Willie looked towards Alex sheepishly, who was staring at him with his eyebrows raised. 

“Do you...like it?” he said when the drummer failed to react in any other way.

Alex squinted at him and he felt himself flush at the intensity of his gaze. After another moment of silence, Alex stepped back a few paces and rolled his sleeves up.

“Oh I’m gonna get you for this,” said the drummer, smiling devilishly before breaking into a sprint and barreling towards the skater. 

Willie shrieked with laughter and surprise, teleporting out of the way just in time.

“No poofing away! That’s cheating!” shouted Alex, searching around the parking lot for the other boy.

Alex heard a thump and shout and looked up towards the emporium, where he saw Willie standing precariously on top of the massive plastic hot dog, waving at him and yelling to come and get him.

Alex felt a rush of warmth bloom in his chest as he looked up at where his boyfriend was standing, bathed in sunlight, his dark hair flowing around his face in the breeze, a few strands of it stuck in his mouth where he awkwardly tried to spit it out while he waved with both hands.

Alex was so going to get him back for this.

**Author's Note:**

> The hot dog museum is not based on any actual place, but I'm POSITIVE there is at least one hot dog museum out there. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are very much appreciated <3


End file.
